Special Seminar: Online Research Methods in Social Sciences
Course code
RAS6235.YK
old course code
RAS6235
Course title in Estonian
Eriseminar: Online uurimismeetodid sotsiaalteadustes
Course title in English
Special Seminar: Online Research Methods in Social Sciences
ECTS credits
3.0
Assessment form
Examination
lecturer of 2023/2024 Spring semester
Not opened for teaching. Click the study programme link below to see the nominal division schedule.
lecturer of 2024/2025 Autumn semester
Not opened for teaching. Click the study programme link below to see the nominal division schedule.
Course aims
The goal of this course is to give an opportunity to get an overview of online sociology (sociology dealing with online phenomena) and online social research methods. To support getting an overview of the predominant theories informing online sociology and the choice of methods.
The course will help the participants gain an understanding of the most commonly used online research methods and also provide an initial hands-on experience in using these.
The course will help the participants gain an understanding of the most commonly used online research methods and also provide an initial hands-on experience in using these.
Brief description of the course
The course will give an overview of:
- the history of the internet studies;
- the current trends;
- online sociology as such;
- cyber-culture;
- theoretical concepts focused on online communities and online identity.
The course will also teach the participants to decide, when it is appropriate to use online methods and how these methods should be used (creating a research plan, building an online questionnaire, which tools to use, how to analyze the data, hot to use the Internet as a means of disseminating the results or interacting with the participants.
The course will focus on online quantitative (surveys, trace data analysis, content analysis etc), qualitative (interviews, focus group interviews, cyber-ethnographic methods, qualitative content analysis) and mixed methods.
The participant will also be knowledgeable of the ethical and legal considerations of using online research methods.
The participants will complete a small-scale independent task for each seminar. The tasks will range from reading and discussing an article to online activities meant to teach the participant the more popular channels, interactive tools and communication styles used as research tools or objects by online sociology (for example the participants might be asked to create a researcher’s blog, set up a connected network of their own blog and that of their colleagues, creating a survey on their Facebook page, conducting a mini-interview on Skype or a small text-chat based interview, try and get consent to observe a public forum, etc).
- the history of the internet studies;
- the current trends;
- online sociology as such;
- cyber-culture;
- theoretical concepts focused on online communities and online identity.
The course will also teach the participants to decide, when it is appropriate to use online methods and how these methods should be used (creating a research plan, building an online questionnaire, which tools to use, how to analyze the data, hot to use the Internet as a means of disseminating the results or interacting with the participants.
The course will focus on online quantitative (surveys, trace data analysis, content analysis etc), qualitative (interviews, focus group interviews, cyber-ethnographic methods, qualitative content analysis) and mixed methods.
The participant will also be knowledgeable of the ethical and legal considerations of using online research methods.
The participants will complete a small-scale independent task for each seminar. The tasks will range from reading and discussing an article to online activities meant to teach the participant the more popular channels, interactive tools and communication styles used as research tools or objects by online sociology (for example the participants might be asked to create a researcher’s blog, set up a connected network of their own blog and that of their colleagues, creating a survey on their Facebook page, conducting a mini-interview on Skype or a small text-chat based interview, try and get consent to observe a public forum, etc).
Learning outcomes in the course
Upon completing the course the student:
The participants will:
- be able to evaluate when online research methods are appropriate for social science research, understand the differences between online and offline research methods and have an understanding of when it might be appropriate to mix the two approaches;
- have an understanding of the main theoretical concepts (like cyber-culture, online communities, online identity) important in online sociology and the ability to locate these in the field;
- be able to identify and discuss the key ethical and methodological issues in online methods;
- be able to find the data and tools available on and necessary for online research method;
- be able to design an online survey; online interview plan, online focus group plan; an online experiment; a cyber-ethnographic research task or pose a research question for online content analysis and use the adequate tools for that (software, channels);
- have experiential knowledge of the tools / channels / communities / blogging / social participation in social networking sites / accessing an online community as a researcher and negotiating access etc.
The participants will:
- be able to evaluate when online research methods are appropriate for social science research, understand the differences between online and offline research methods and have an understanding of when it might be appropriate to mix the two approaches;
- have an understanding of the main theoretical concepts (like cyber-culture, online communities, online identity) important in online sociology and the ability to locate these in the field;
- be able to identify and discuss the key ethical and methodological issues in online methods;
- be able to find the data and tools available on and necessary for online research method;
- be able to design an online survey; online interview plan, online focus group plan; an online experiment; a cyber-ethnographic research task or pose a research question for online content analysis and use the adequate tools for that (software, channels);
- have experiential knowledge of the tools / channels / communities / blogging / social participation in social networking sites / accessing an online community as a researcher and negotiating access etc.
Teacher
Katrin Tiidenberg, MA
Prerequisite course 1
Study programmes containing that course